When you look in a dictionary many words come from latin. But what did Roman dictionaries say that their words came from? Or did they have a branch of government responsible for word making?
Interesting question! But, did the Romans actually have dictionaries? I think I remember hearing that the first one was an English dictionary. I may be wrong though. you've got me thinking now!! :-)
Yes, good question indeed. Give me a couple of days and I might come up with an answer. If you're lucky, Quizmonster will chip in before that, and I'd go with what he says.
well according to legend and quite possibly rooted in fact the romans were descended from the survivors of troy, who themselves are suspected of being a ahhh cant remember off top of my head but minoan or one other one. where they came from is unknown but i suspect that written language was not far off being a new development by then.
If you click http://au.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761573731/Dictionary.html and scroll down to the paragraph which opens: "The Greeks and Romans..." you'll get an answer. Basically, these peoples didn't have what we would recognise as a 'dictionary' as such. Certainly much of Latin vocabulary was borrowed - and often modified - from Greek.
Bob and I seem to have got involved in a bit of synchrography there! I think, if you read the complete web-page my link above takes you to, you'll see that several 'dictionaries' preceded Dr Johnson's. I suppose, in the end, it all boils down to what one is prepared to accept as a dictionary. Cheers